Monthly Archives: April 2013

Journalist J.D. Mullane appeared on FNC’s Huckabee show over the weekend for an excellent interview on the Gosnell trial. Mullane spoke in moving terms of his attendance at the trial as a transformative experience. The interview essentially updated and amplified on his column “What I saw at the Gosnell trial.” Someone should cut a video of the interview and get it online. In the meantime, I want to draw attention »

That’s the question posed on Fox Sunday News by Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House homeland security committee. McCaul stated: “I think the experts all agree that there is someone who did train these two individuals.” It’s easy to understand this consensus. The Tsarnaev brothers had a fairly sophisticated operation — seemingly beyond what they could have picked up solely from the do-it-yourself websites they apparently frequented. But if »

Aquille Carr is a 5’7″ (maybe) high school point guard. He’s nicknamed “the Crime Stopper” because during his games in a tough area of Baltimore, Carr’s must-see play was said to bring a halt to crime. Today, in a less impressive feat, Carr was “the blog stopper” as far as I’m concerned. That is, I put blogging and all other pursuits aside to watch Carr play in a high school »

Carbon dioxide does influence the Earth’s climate, but it is just one variable among a great many, and its impact is small. Scientists agree that if you double the CO2 in the atmosphere, it will cause an increase in the Earth’s temperature of around one degree Celsius. Nearly all scientists also agree that an increase of that magnitude would be good, not bad, for humans. The minor role played by »

People who don’t regularly communicate with the Democratic Party have no idea what a cesspool of hatred that organization is. It has one means, and one means only, of rallying its supporters to contribute money and to vote: that is to personalize every issue, and to demonize every opponent with smears that would make an honest man or woman blush. This email is typical; the Democrats sent out several, almost »

There’s likely an inverse relationship between the decline of the legacy media and the increasingly over-the-top desperation, self-congratulation and spectacle of the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, held last night. You would think the media would do themselves a favor and not televise the proceedings of their Otherness on C-SPAN, just as the Gridiron dinner is not open to cameras. Even Tom Brokaw has had enough; isn’t this almost a »

As we noted here a few weeks ago, The Economist has gone off the reservation on climate change, and in the current issue it has done so again on the issue of affirmation action and race-conscious policy. The issue is featured on the cover, which means it is the subject of the first “leader” (house editorial), “Time to Scrap Affirmative Action,” as well as the focus of a long feature »

The Gang of Eight immigration bill shares several unlovely characteristics of the Obamacare legislation. Its supporters haven’t yet claimed that we might have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it (or what’s not in it), but that seems to be the case. The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro reports: The Senate’s complex immigration bill would instantly gut the popular E-Verify system that is widely used to exclude illegal »

Rep. Hank Johnson is, as they say in presidential nominating speeches, “the man who.” Rep. Johnson is the man who worried that the island of Guam might capsize. In 2010 Johnson expressed concern at a hearing that the planned military buildup on the island of Guam might cause the island “to tip over and capsize.” The testifying naval officer struggled manfully to reassure Rep. Johnson that the island would survive. »

In my tribute to Ella Fitzgerald on her birthday last week, I mentioned mentioned that, after he sold the Verve label, Norman Granz founded the Pablo label to continue recording Ella. To test the market for a new label, Granz put together an all-star concert featuring Ella and the Count Basie Band at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in June 1972 that was to be recorded and released (unsuccessfully, with »

I have never practiced criminal law (except briefly at the international level) and have not studied it since 1974. Thus, like most Americans, much of what I think I know about criminal procedure comes from watching television and movies. My viewing experience does not include any instances in which a judge read a criminal defendant his or her Miranda warning in the middle of police interrogation. Thus, I was shocked »

The explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas that claimed 14 lives is still unexplained; investigators have not yet figured out the cause. But that hasn’t stopped the Democrats from trying to make political hay out of the tragedy. First we have this disgusting cartoon in the Sacramento Bee, which is predicated on the idea that the explosion was caused by lax regulation on the part of the State »

Brian Ward and I convened on the first real Spring day here in Minnesota. Congressman Tom Cotton was our guest; you shouldn’t miss this episode of the Hinderaker-Ward Experience, as we talked with Tom about the Boston Marathon massacre, immigration and gun control. Tom’s view of what the House is likely to do with the immigration issue gives me more optimism about our country’s future than I have had for »

President Obama really poured it on in his speech to Planned Parenthood yesterday (video below). Taken together with the introduction by Planned Parenthood’s president, we get a full airing of the sacramental view of abortion that underlies the Democrats’ mania on behalf of the practice. Obama’s speech begins at about 6:30. In the gospel according to Barry, we now have the blessing for the abortionist: “As long as we’ve got »

Yale history/classics professor Donald Kagan is a great old-fashioned scholar and teacher. The author of a classic four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War, he has written many other books of distinction including Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy and On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace. Professor Kagan is retiring from his position at Yale. He gave his last lecture on Thursday afternoon to a »

Intending to smooth the waters over its cancellation of classes in lieu of a full day of left-wing indoctrination served up to placate a small number of protesters, Dartmouth College has sent out an email blast to alumni under the name of board chairman Stephen Mandel. Interim president Carol Folt is responsible for the disgraceful production defended by Mandel, but Folt is on her way out. She has been named »

This week, Rep. Dr. Michael Burgess (R-Tex) introduced H.R.1705, a bill to amend the U.S. Code to provide for certain forms of physical therapy under TRICARE, the military’s health care program. Our friend Rep. Tom Cotton is co-sponsoring the legislation. H.R. 1705, also known as “Kaitlyn’s Law,” would make sure that Tricare covers doctor-prescribed therapeutic exercises or therapeutic activities. When the doctors and therapists treating a patient covered by TRICARE »